Description
Book SynopsisPresents a comprehensive account of an important but widely contested approach to ethics - intuitionism, the view that there is a plurality of moral principles, each of which we can know directly. This book casts intuitionism in a form that provides an alternative to the more familiar ethical perspectives (utilitarian, Kantian, and Aristotelian).
Trade Review"This unique and fascinating endeavor is required reading for anyone interested in intuitionism, in moral epistemology, or, indeed, in ethical theory today."--Jessica Prata Miller, Philosophy in Review
Table of ContentsPreface ix Introduction 1 Chapter 1. Early Twentieth-Century Intuitionism 5 1. Henry Sidgwick:Three Kinds of Ethical Intuitionism 5 2. G. E. Moore as a Philosophical Intuitionist 11 3. H. A. Prichard and the Reassertion of Dogmatic Intuitionism 14 4. C. D. Broad and the Concept of Fittingness 17 5. W. D. Ross and the Theory of Prima Facie Duty 20 6. Intuitions, Intuitionism, and Reflection 32 Chapter 2. Rossian Intuitionism as a Contemporary Ethical Theory 40 1. The Rossian Appeal to Self-Evidence 40 2. Two Types of Self-Evidence 48 3. Resources and Varieties of Moderate Intuitionism 54 4. Disagreement, Incommensurability, and the Charge of Dogmatism 60 5. Intuitive Moral Judgment and Rational Action 68 Chapter 3. Kantian Intuitionism 80 1. The Possibility of Systematizing Rossian Principles 81 2. A Kantian Integration of Intuitionist Principles 83 3. Kantian Intuitionism as a Development of Kantian Ethics 105 4. Between the Middle Axioms and Moral Decision: The Multiple Grounds of Obligation 113 Chapter 4. Rightness and Goodness 121 1. Intrinsic Value and the Grounding of Reasons for Action 122 2. Intrinsic Value and Prima Facie Duty 134 3. The Autonomy of Ethics 149 4. Deontological Constraints and Agent-Relative Reasons 151 5. The Unity Problem for Intuitionist Ethics 157 Chapter 5. Intuitionism in Normative Ethics 161 1. Five Methods in Normative Ethical Reflection 162 2. The Need for Middle Theorems 165 3. Some Dimensions of Beneficence 174 4. Toward a Comprehensive Intuitionist Ethics 177 Conclusion 197 Notes 203 Index 239
